Minnesota joblessness jumps to 8.1% in 1st month of pandemic

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - Minnesota’s unemployment rate for April jumped to 8.1%, a loss of nearly 360,000 jobs in the first full month of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Minnesota’s unemployment rate was 2.9% in March. The new jobless numbers were way below the nearly 700,000 applications for unemployment insurance that Minnesota has received since March 16, when Gov. Tim Walz ordered bars and restaurants to close.

<!-- The following message will be displayed to users with unsupported browsers: --> Your browser does not support the <code>iframe</code> HTML tag. Try viewing this in a modern browser like Chrome, Safari, Firefox or Internet Explorer 9 or later.

Officials say there are several reasons why the numbers don’t match. A key reason is that workers can get benefits if their hours have been cut but they’re still working. They aren’t counted as unemployed in the official rate.

The Mankato metropolitan statistical area lost the fewest number of jobs in the state over the last year, down 6,551.